Guest access

The Guest access plugin allows users with the Guest role to view the contents of a course. This might be used, for example, if a Moodle site serves as a website where certain courses contain publicly available information, or else with a commercial Moodle site where courses with guest access can offers a "taster" of the kind of courses which may be purchased. (Note that the guest cannot participate in any activities; they can only view content.)

Course settings for guest access

1. In Administration > Course administration > Users > Enrolment methods, enable Guest access by clicking on the "eye" icon or by choosing it in the 'Add method' dropdown menu.
2. If you wish to set a password, then click the configure icon and type in your password here.

Setting password from Enrolment methods page

Admin settings for guest access

• In Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Manage enrol plugins,ensure Guest access is enabled (has its eye open.) This enables Guest access.
• In Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Manage authentication set the Guest login button to Show if you want the button on the Front page.
• Also Guest accounts can be logged - check the Administration> Site administration > Server > Cleanup > Log guest access setting
• A site policy for guests may be set in Site administration > Security > Site policies. Guests then have to agree to the site policy before accessing a course with guest access.

Default settings for guest access

• Clicking on Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Guest access brings up the screen where admin can set defaults for guest access in courses.
  • Clicking the 'Advanced' button next to 'Allow guest access' will hide this setting in a course and will instead display a 'Show more' link to click on to access the setting.
  • Guest access can be turned on by default in all new courses and you can also:
  • require each course with guest access to have a password for guests. (Note: this can confuse teachers who are not aware of the requirement.)
  • use or ignore your Moodle's standard password policy for guest access passwords
  • offer if needed the first letter of the password as a hint.

Auto-login guests

• In Administration > Site administration > Users > Permissions > User policies, you can tick the box so that visitors are automatically logged in as guests when accessing a course with guest access (i.e. they don't have to click the "login as guest button".
• In Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Authentication > Manage Authentication, you must have "Guest login button" set to "Show".
• In Administration > Site administration > Security > Site policies you can check "Open to Google" setting so that the Google search robot will be allowed to enter your site as a Guest. In addition, people coming in to your site via a Google search will automatically be logged in as a Guest.

See also

• Guest role
• Re: Guest access to course sections! forum post
• Tracker discussion 'Auto-login guests not working' MDLSITE-4903